| 0:37 | Intro. [Recording date: June 18, 2025.] Russ Roberts: Today is June 18th, 2025. My guest is author and photographer, Chris Arnade. His substack is Chris Arnade Walks the World. He was last here in July of 2019, talking about his book, Dignity. And this is his third appearance. Today, we're going to talk about walking, which Chris does an enormous amount of. We're going to talk about the differences in daily life, and standard of living, and aesthetics between Europe and the United States; and I'm sure other things will come up along the way. And, as I mentioned in a recent episode because of the war here in Israel, I'm doing this from home, so please excuse any street noise. Chris, welcome back to EconTalk. Chris Arnade: Thank you for having me. |
| 1:19 | Russ Roberts: Let's start with walking. You were walking some when we talked the last time; you were doing a photography project. I know you've been a walker for a while. But, you've become--it's kind of your day job. What's that about? What do you do? Chris Arnade: Yeah, I mean, I can't believe this is kind of my day job, but it has. I'm very fortunate. I basically just walk everywhere. I mean, I travel the world, as my substack is called. It was called Walking the World, but I got copyrighted out of that, so it's called Chris Arnade Walks the World. And, that's what I do. I go into a new place, and the rule is I can't really use a car. I just walk everywhere. And so, I'll come into a new city--let's say Beijing as an example of a place I've recently been in. And I land, take the bus into the airport, my hotel, and then I just walk across the city the next day. Usually, that's 15 miles. And then, the next day, I try to walk across the other direction. And, over the course of maybe two weeks or 10 days or whatever period I'm there, I slowly evolve my walk to kind of focus on the things that I find interesting. But, it's a way to kind of see a city and learn about a place that I feel is, kind of, in many ways, the most natural way of understanding how a culture and how a city operates, is to simply just walk it. And so, that's what I do. Russ Roberts: A friend of mine, who does a lot of traveling and takes intense vacations along with his other kinds of business, and some kind of various amounts of personal travel, he has a rule that, when he gets to a city, he does the most important things at the beginning. Because, if the trip's cut short, if the weather changes, that way he won't miss anything. So, if he's going to Paris, Day One is probably the Louvre; and the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe is the second day, along with whatever it is. Now, I don't subscribe to that. I'm pretty confident you don't either. I do have a list of things I want to see in a city--usually a few things. But, part of my experience as a traveler is I just like walking, as you do. But, I don't do it in as thorough a way as you do. And, I'm curious: do you see any of those touristy kind of things on these walks, or is it just strolling in certain types of neighborhoods? How do you design and seek out what you want to find there? Chris Arnade: In some ways, I actually try to stay away from those places. There's usually--I often will look at a city and say, 'What are the top 10 places you must see?' And, from my experience, I've found that those generally are crowded. They don't look that much different than they do. I don't learn much from them because--and there's a kind of global uniformity to them. They're kind of on the UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization] site, must-see sites, and any sense of aura, originality, or mysticism has been kind of bled out of them through this iterative process of being over-touristed and overhyped. I kind of like to find what is considered the most banal part of a town and go there first, if that makes sense, because I think those are the places where people--what I've said is, in many of the more touristy sites, the kind of must-see sites--the locals are kind of play-acting for tourists. They're aware of what their image is, and they're putting on kind of an act of, 'Oh, I'm Parisian,' or, 'Oh, I'm Vietnamese,' or, 'Oh, I'm providing you an image of Indonesia that the Tourist Bureau wants to see.' Whereas the reality of most people's lives--to get a glimpse of that, if that's what you're interested in--and again, if you're interested in the must-see sites, go see the must-see sites. I understand people who--I'm not--I'm more interested in seeing how culture operates and how operate on their daily life. And in many ways, you've got to see them when they're not kind of acting for the camera. And, you get that sense by just walking across a town and being forced to stumble into places you might not have expected. The classic example I give of that is: One of my favorite cities in the world is Istanbul. I encourage everybody to go to Istanbul. It's just a magnificent city on so many different levels. It has the history; it's still alive; it's still vibrant--all those clichéd words. But, I've probably spent, in aggregate, two months in Istanbul, three months in Istanbul, and I've been to the Hagia Sophia once, and I regretted it. I went on a Sunday morning; it was the only time in Istanbul where I was pestered as a tourist--where people tried to sell me things, where people tried to force their images on me, where I got bus fumes. And, I kind of felt like it was play-acting as a mosque for the cameras. Whereas, in my neighborhood of Üsküdar, where I stay on the Asian side--which is a moderately conservative, middle, middle-class Muslim neighborhood--there are six to seven mosques that, while they don't go back to 400 A.D., they go back to 1500 A.D. And, they're absolutely gorgeous, and they're still used as a mosque. They're still used primarily. They still have a congregation, and they still operate as part of the community. The best thing a mosque does, it operates as a community center. It is open all the time. It has a bathroom so you can wash up in. That's exactly what they are. They still serve the community as a community center. They're central to the community. And, you know, I got a kind of lot more in my time being in these smaller mosques that no tourists ever go to than I've got from any kind of sense of being in the Hagia Sophia. So, that's kind of how I try to travel. I try to travel in a way that--and I found those by accident. I literally found those because I was walking up a hill and I needed a break. And, one of the things--you're in Israel, you know the older synagogues and the old mosques are--they're smartly constructed to be places where you can take a break from the sun. Because they're cool. And so, I went into it for all the reasons you want to go into it: because it was a cool break. And then, sitting there, feeling kind of out of sorts because I'm not Muslim; but, the old women who would see me every day eventually fed me, came over and gave me water and gave me plates of food, because they felt bad for me. So, that wouldn't happen in the Hagia Sophia. And, that gave me a much better understanding of the Muslim faith, as an outsider--the positive parts of it--than having been attacked by souvenir sellers. |
| 8:48 | Russ Roberts: I want to come back to something you said a minute ago because I think it gets to the heart of this distinction you're making between must-see places. Which, by the way, when you say it quickly, sounds like 'musty.' And of course, in a certain sense, they are. They're often historically old, and they're musty at least in some sense. I think when most people go to a place like a famous mosque, or museum, or monument like the Eiffel Tower, some of it is to check the box. It's a bucket list thing. They've always, quote, "wanted to see it." Some of it is they're very beautiful. There is something magnificent. And, that's why it's must-see. It's not just a UNESCO world historical site. It's one of the great, say, achievements: the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, to pick another example. It's an incredible human achievement. And, it's nice to see it, and you feel maybe uplifted, maybe not. But, you're not trying to 'learn something,' which is the phrase you used when you talked about strolling through different neighborhoods. You say you don't learn anything if you go to the tourist spots. But, if you walk through the actual neighborhoods where people live and aren't hawking souvenirs. What are you trying to learn? And what have you learned from those experiences? And, you don't speak 14 languages, I don't think. Chris Arnade: No, I speak only English. So, I'm trying to get a sense for understanding how humans interact with the world, how they see the world, how they understand the world. And, to the first point: Yeah, look, I would never dissuade someone from going to the Louvre and seeing the Mona Lisa. I, myself, have never done it. That's just not what interests me. Russ Roberts: I haven't either. Chris Arnade: But, to get kind of geeky, I feel a bit like the Ship of Theseus issue, which is a lot of these places-- Russ Roberts: Explain what that is, first. Chris Arnade: That's the idea that if you replace every plank in a ship, is it still the ship? Russ Roberts: Over a hundred years of renovation, and eventually every board has to be renovated. The way-- Chris Arnade: The way I'd explain it--it's an old paradox from the ancient Greeks. But, the modern equivalent I think younger people understand is: If you replace every member of a band, is it still the band? Who is ever touring as the Temptations now--is that still the Temptations? So, I feel that way a lot about a lot of the kind of big tourist attractions. Now, the answer to that is kind of Walter Benjamin's answer about replication, which is that, the replication: there's a sense of aura. The sense of creation is still present. And, I get that. As a Catholic, I see that in the cathedrals. I'm moved when I'm in a cathedral, physically in a cathedral, in a way that just wouldn't be the case if I just saw a picture of it. And, you know--but even then, I will prefer--you know, I was in Avignon, and I never went to the Pope's Palace. Instead, I went to the cathedrals on the west of town, where the Congolese immigrants basically were. And, I found that to be--the churches, the cathedrals, much more alive, in the sense of the congregation was active. There were a lot more religious moments there that kind of moved me in a way more than what I would call the dead antiques. But, look: I think there's a lot of reason to go to those places. I wouldn't dissuade people from it. But, in terms of the larger question: I think the kind of--I may be naive in wanting to answer the big questions of my life. I went into cosmology as an undergraduate to try to understand the Big Bang and the big questions. And I kind of, like, think about how people interact with the world. Like: Why are we here? What are we doing here, and how do we deal with being here on a daily basis? I mean, there are so many different ways we do it. And so, I like to see how people live. I like to see their daily routines. I like to see how they kind of approach the question of what's the point of being here, and what gives me fulfillment? So, I like to be around people, and I like to talk to people. I like to see how they form communities and what matters to them. And, while I don't speak many of them--I speak only English. I have a lot of conversations with people in English who do speak English. It's become the global language now. I'm very fortunate in that. But, you can also see a lot, learn a lot by just observing. As to what I've learned, I mean, I wish there were four-- Russ Roberts: You write about it in your substack. Your substack, Chris Arnade Walks the World, is not just, 'I had a croissant here, and then I got these nice snacks from these Muslim ladies.' You try to distill some of, obviously, your experiences into observations. But, for people who haven't read those yet--and I hope many of you go check it out--I sort of experience this when I take my noise-canceling AirPods, and I'm walking in the street, and I turn off the noise-canceling--which is not a smart thing to do in most urban areas. You're often vulnerable, and you need to be able to hear traffic noises. But sometimes I do it for a very short period of time, and the world goes silent. You're watching people going about their lives, and you're feeling something quite often moving about the human experience from just being a spectator. But, in your case--and when you do this in America; I know you go to McDonald's, or you're in that mosque in Istanbul, or you're in a church in Avignon--you're talking to people, and you're trying to understand them, I assume, but also to see how their lives are different. Try to put that into words. What are you hoping to experience or know from those encounters, if anything specific? Chris Arnade: It's just trying to understand how people think about the world. And, a lot of people don't think about the world. That's kind of one of the lessons, which is: to do what you or I do--or presumably a lot of your listeners do--which is to have an active internal life and do a lot of questioning, is not what a lot of people do. That's abnormal. And, that's one of the lessons. And, I don't mean that in a negative way at all. I try to emphasize that people shouldn't--I'm thinking a lot about what is a good culture. The ultimate questions--I read a lot of Greek philosophy these days, and one of the ultimate questions is: When you read the Greek philosophers, they would never detach the concept of a fulfilling life from the concept of the political, the polis. You're part of a community, and you can't understand people if you don't understand the community they form and how they form community. So, that, to me, is kind of the big interest, is: How do we form communities? It's not political science, it's not really urban planning. It's kind of a mix of the two. How do people form communities, and what communities work better than others? And I think people are scared to ask that question, because I think there is a sense of relativism that has infiltrated academia over the last 60 years. It may act as if the simple question, 'Is this culture better than the other?' is kind of off limits. But, I mean, that's a fair question to ask. And, I think it's one that, if you go to so many different cultures, you can see some places that work better than others. And, what does that mean? That means they provide the citizens a greater sense of fulfillment, a greater sense of contentment, a greater sense of happiness. Probably one of the bigger lessons from the last six years of my work--and people will accuse me of being on both sides of this as well--is that while the United States is great, and I've written about it being, kind of, a great country, we, in many ways, fall short in the very basic understanding of providing fulfillment to the most people. There's a lot of unhappiness here in the United States that you just don't see in other places. And, I'm not here to glamorize poverty. I don't want to be the person who goes to Africa for two weeks and says, 'Oh my God, look how beautiful it is. There's so much--'. No. I mean, poverty is atrocious. Economic advancement has been a wonderful thing for the world, but it's also brought an ancillary sense of isolation and loneliness. I'm by no means the first person to have written about this. You can go back into the 1930s and see Weber and others write about this--the kind of modern entity[?] causing a sense of isolation. And, one of the things that's so great about being in Istanbul, or Vietnam, or other places, is there is a lot more--places that are much poorer than the United States that have a much greater sense of community. And, that's important to people. People need that. And, I think that's one of the kind of things I try to keep emphasizing in my writing. I think people--and it was in my work--I think we probably talked about this seven years ago or so--about the idea of dignity, that people really need to be part of a community. And, I think a lot of Americans and a lot of economists kind of forget that. |
| 19:24 | Russ Roberts: Give me a couple of places on your travels where you saw a community that moved you or touched you, or you thought, 'Wow, this is special.' Chris Arnade: I mean, Istanbul is one of the more extreme examples, but also Europe relative to the United States. There is a sense of Japan, Vietnam--you see people who take care of each other in a way that, in the United States, you just don't. I mean, Japan is famously--there's a sense of loneliness there as well. But, one of the things I always think about is--i.s just this last trip, I remember I was doing a walk where it was six in the morning. It gets light early. I had a long walk; it was going to be hot. So, I get up early, and it's, like, 5:30 in the morning or so; and I'm walking, and I'm at a road. I was in Hokkaido and the roads there are very straight. So, it's, like, there's nobody coming. I can look either way. There's nobody coming. And then, there's a woman across from me, older woman, and she wasn't going to cross. And so, I wasn't going to cross either, because I wasn't going to culturally pollute. I did everything I could to stop myself from wanting to cross, because this is my New Yorker instinct. But, I recognized that the fact that she wasn't going to cross--she was going to follow the rules--is why so much works in Japan: why they can have the bus system that they have, why they can have the kind of public spaces they have. Because people understand there's a greater good and that you're part of a community. You can't just do what feels good in the moment--or might be rational in the moment--because there's a greater goal here. Vietnam was one of the cases where people just--it is one of the countries where, in Hanoi, where--and I did not stay in the fancy part of Vietnam. I did not stay in the part where, to the degree there is a fancy part, where that little train goes down the road and there's thousands of Instagram pictures of it. I was in the south of Hanoi, just a regular neighborhood; and people were treating me to dinners. People were taking me into their homes and feeding me, and they were bringing me into their lives. And, I saw the way in which kids respected their parents in a way that is very important. So, that if somebody does fall through the cracks or has problems, the community is there to both scold them if they misbehave, but also pick them up and help them in a way that you just don't see in the United States. You do not have the degree of people just living on the streets without any community. Mosques are the perfect example. Amman is a town that I felt very welcomed in, even though I'm clearly an outsider. You saw that sort of environment where the mosque serves as a community center that, effectively, if somebody is--they can go in and wash up and rest in the shade. We don't have that in the United States, that form of nongovernmental help, that form of nongovernmental regulation. I mean, you know well in Israel, there are things higher than the police who enforce the rules. Russ Roberts: But it's interesting, because the United States has an extraordinary private sector, a so-called civil society of charitable organizations that do help in an organized way. And, I think you're really talking about the one-on-one kind of interactions that most Americans find frightening. They don't want to talk to strangers. And, what's interesting to me is that here in Israel, one of the things I've discovered to my surprise is that even though this current government is not loved widely by many people--it's loved by some and hated by others--but, everybody treats government regulations here with surprising respect that I didn't anticipate. In America, some of the rules here would be treated as suggestions. But, it's like crossing the street at 5:30 in the morning when no traffic is coming. People just generally don't do those things that are, quote, "not allowed," at least in my experience. I may be grossly incorrect here, and it may be very much specific to my experience. But, the government will issue a set of regulations, say, about gathering during this war. They don't want people gathering in large groups. And, I'm thinking it's kind of silly. Right now in Jerusalem, it's relatively safe. No one says that. That's what I think. I don't say it out loud. They get the rules, and they follow them, and it's surprising. So, anyway, that's fascinating. |
| 24:52 | Russ Roberts: Let's talk about some of the logistics. You're walking long distances, often on foot instead of buses, trains, and planes. So, what's a long journey for you? Chris Arnade: I have two types of trips. One is I'll go to a town and get a room, a hotel room, and just walk every day--10 miles, 15 miles, usually about 15 miles, 13, 15 miles. The other is I'll carry stuff on my back, and I'll change my hotel room every day. So, I walked the Rhine Valley from Dortmund to Cologne. I've walked from Marseille--I was in Avignon because I was walking from Marseille to Lyon, up the Rhine Valley. I've walked across Japan from Tokyo to Nagata. Russ Roberts: What kind of distances are we talking about here? Chris Arnade: 200 miles, 200-ish miles, usually 15 miles a day. Russ Roberts: What are you carrying on your back? Chris Arnade: I've upgraded to a kind of better--generally a backpack-- it weighs about 25. Russ Roberts: What's in it? Chris Arnade: Just the bare necessities. Absolutely the bare necessities. I'm an extraordinarily light traveler. Basically, I have two walking outfits, two of everything, one nighttime outfit, one I feel okay to go to church in. And, that's it. I have a computer and electronics, and I always carry one physical book just in case. I have an iPad, or I have an e-reader, but that's it. I mean, it's like 25 pounds. I stress over everything I bring. I bring the least possible. Russ Roberts: So, at night, are you washing underwear and other things in the sink, or are you just staying away from people? Chris Arnade: Yeah, I bring four pairs of underpants, five pairs. They're light; they can be stuffed in corners--six pairs. And then, sometimes I just throw them away and buy new ones. You can buy stuff. Or I always like to go to laundromats. I really actually like the experience of going to a laundromat. I like to see laundromats across the world, hang out there, and get to know the people. And so, I do my laundry about once a week. Russ Roberts: And, historically, you have carried a camera-- Chris Arnade: Correct. I carry a [?]-- Russ Roberts: rather than using your phone. Why? Chris Arnade: Correct. I have a camera that keep in my back pocket. It's a point-and-shoot. It's a pretty expensive point-and-shoot, but it's, like, $800. Russ Roberts: Who makes it? Chris Arnade: I have a Panasonic currently, but I just lost mine. I had to buy a new one. Yeah. Russ Roberts: Why don't you use your iPhone, or your phone? Chris Arnade: Because I'm enough of a photography snob where, while the iPhone was good, the quality just isn't there; and it annoys me. Russ Roberts: So interesting, for a man who likes to travel light, that's an expensive preference. But I salute you. Chris Arnade: My point-and-shoot is pretty small. It's probably a pound, if less. Fits in my back pocket. So, I make a point of being able--I can pull it out and take a picture in, like, half a second. Russ Roberts: And, you recently changed your shoes. You wrote about this. Why did you change them, and what do you wear? Chris Arnade: I was famously a guy who only wore Tevas--sandals--but I started having arch problems. I started having foot problems. And, my podiatrist said, 'You can't be wearing sandals, not when you're carrying a pack.' And, he's right. So, I moved to boots. I moved to KEEN boots. And, as you get older, I think if people are interested about--if the goal is--the thing I would say, especially as you get older--I walk, when I'm not traveling I still walk 10 miles a day. I have a ten-mile walk I do every day. You've got to be consistent. The rule of thumb I have--the very geeky rule of thumb--is, is: I don't increase or decrease my weekly mileage by more than 20-to-30%. You ramp down, and you ramp up. If you do that, as you get older, you're going to get an overuse injury, if you kind of go from zero to 10. So, I'm very careful. I actually do monitor my mileage very carefully, because consistency is the key to not getting injured. Russ Roberts: Do you look at your step count? I'm afraid to ask. Chris Arnade: Yeah, I do. That's how I watch my miles. Russ Roberts: So, what's a big day, step-count-wise? Chris Arnade: A big day is over 40,000--over 20 miles. My average day, I just got the number recently from--I guess I've had it now for four years. I'm averaging about 11 and a half miles a day for the last four years. Russ Roberts: Wow. Kind of incredible. How do you stay dry? Or do you not care? Chris Arnade: I don't care. So, in general, I accept I'm going to get wet at times. I've been very fortunate about--I carry an umbrella. I have a tarp I've never used. I've never used my tarp. That's another thing I carry that I just never use. In general, I use an umbrella, and I have a jacket I really like, which is also waterproof. And so, that's it. Sometimes I just get wet. My backpack is waterproof. That's very important. I wrap everything in plastic bags if it's going to rain, even though my backpack is waterproof. And then, I just get wet, and that's fine. |
| 31:09 | Russ Roberts: So, when you're walking 200 miles across country, are you sleeping outside? Russ Roberts: Do you plan it accordingly? Chris Arnade: Yeah, I plan it. I am not a completist in the sense of having to walk the entire distance. There are times when I'll take a bus boost if getting to a hotel means another five miles. But, in general, I've mostly done--I haven't really had to use those bus boosts, because I generally--I like people. I like to be around dense urban environments. And so, there are very few of those in the world. But, not surprisingly, most of those are built around river valleys, because of the way economies work. So, in general, I kind of like to walk along long, stringy, highly developed areas. And, that's Europe and Japan. So, the United States doesn't have those, really. We are too big for that. So, my long walks have generally been--I've done 12 of them now, I think, and they've all been in Europe or Japan. Russ Roberts: And, are you using your phone for navigation when you're on those walks? Chris Arnade: Yeah. I mean, I spend a lot of time on maps ahead of time. A lot of my free time is just doing pin drops on maps. This is the first time I've actually--my first use of AI [artificial intelligence] has actually been helping me plan these walks, these long walks. I actually asked AI one night out of curiosity, and it did surprisingly well. Because, there are so many routes. I mean, it's an optimization problem. If you're walking 200 miles, and you want to sleep in a town every night, you want to sleep in a hotel every night, then it's a conserving optimization problem. Right? And then, you have all these--you also don't want to walk on roads. You want to walk on roads that aren't too busy. So, AI--I was doing that effectively. It takes four or five hours to put all the information together. You have to drop pins on Google Maps; you have to look at--but AI has helped me. It kind of lies at times, so you've got to be careful. But, it is not a bad way to help do that constrained optimization problem. |
| 33:37 | Russ Roberts: Are you a large person? Meaning, you're out in the world often in neighborhoods that are not where the rich tourists go. Are you ever worried, anxious, scared? I don't think you carry a weapon other than your camera. Chris Arnade: I certainly don't carry a weapon. I think that makes things worse. I mean, I'm 6'2", 200 pounds. Russ Roberts: Yeah, there you go. That helps. Chris Arnade: What's funny is, in the United States, when I'm in bad neighborhoods, I get mistaken as somebody--I don't dress well. And so, I've had people ask me if I need a meal. Russ Roberts: Yeah. As a professor, that's happened to me, too, but-- Chris Arnade: I remember I played a game--yeah, that's funny you mentioned that, because a long time ago I wrote an article about Ithaca, New York, and I asked that you can play a game: is it a heroin addict or a math professor? Russ Roberts: Yeah. And, in the old days, when people talking to themselves with no one around was a sign usually of someone who had issues, that was also the case, because sometimes it was just a faculty member thinking aloud, talking to themselves. And, since I was [?] is street person. What's the best thing that's happened to you on a walk? Chris Arnade: That's a hard question. The best thing that's happened to me on a walk? Russ Roberts: Two or three, doesn't have to be the best. I like the story about the mosque. There's another one about being fed. Chris Arnade: I understand what's going on in the world right now, but probably my experiences in mosques--I've seen a--I'm Catholic. These trips have been probably the best advertisement for the Muslim faith for me. In many ways, I've seen it is. I saw in Indonesia--I was there; I forget the name of the festival; your Muslim listeners will yell at me--but it was a festival where they slaughter animals and give the meat to the neighborhood, to the poor. So, I watched the whole thing. I was in a part of Jakarta that was kind of not a fancy place. It was in a neighborhood right adjacent to a Kampung where the garbage collectors live--not the ones who did trucks, but the ones who pulled carts. And, I remember they took delivery of steer in front of the mosque the night before, and all the kids were there taking pictures of it, running around. And the steer--they painted a number on it, and there was a little celebration. And then, the next day, they slaughtered the steer; and they divvied up the meat and gave it to the entire neighborhood. And they invited me to dinner. That was one of the cases where I was invited to dinner, for an instance. Being adopted as a regular, in many ways, is what I say is--this happens to be my personality, but one of my advices to people is: don't stress about where you go out to eat. I understand people want the best, but I have found that, in general, people end up spending so much time stressing about where to eat, they kind of miss the point of going out. And so, I just generally go into a place--I sometimes randomly choose a place--and then I stick with it if I like it. And so, there's a bar in Üsküdar, Istanbul--I call it my old man bar--that I've been going back to whenever I'm in Istanbul. There's literally one bar in Üsküdar because it's a Muslim neighborhood, and it's the one secular bar where the old men go to watch, to bet on horses. And, it's one of those things where I feel like there's a wall of photos of past regulars who are dead. And, I made a deal with the owner that, if I die, then I get to put my picture up there. So, in that sense of being kind of allowed in some small way into these places, I have six or seven of them across the world that I feel like I make a point of trying to return to. There's an Izakaya in Tokyo that I literally came into by accident, and that now I feel obliged to go to whenever I'm in Tokyo. The food's nothing special, but it has been there 25, 30 years. I'm treated very warmly. I feel, in some small ways, a regular there. And so, I feel that there's a warmness about the world that I think is--not to be too cliched, but I mean, people have a default good tendency, before they turn negative, that they want to welcome people. Russ Roberts: For listeners who hear this and think, 'I wish I could do that'--and, I think many of us would struggle to do it well, and we'd be anxious about it, and that would be right in our faces. When you walk into a randomly chosen bar or restaurant--and of course there are certain kinds of bars and restaurants where they're just going to leave you alone: you're going to sit at your table. And there's other kinds where you're going to end up inevitably interacting with people. Do you look to initiate conversation? Do you wait for people to talk to you? How does that work? Chris Arnade: You know, I don't know. I've been told I'm relatively gregarious, which I think so. My parents would have found it shocking, since I was a shy kid. But, I feel very much like--this may sound kind of autistic, but I remember when I decided to stop being shy. I remember where I was, and what the idea I had, which was I realized I was very awkward with the formalities around first meeting somebody--you shake their hand. And, I remember where I was when I realized, 'Wait, everybody is, so it doesn't matter. Just do it.' And so, I just started doing it. I'm sure I come off initially as a bit of a kind of all-over-the-place, maybe a little bit like a bull in a China shop; but that's one minute. I think if you have good intentions, that wins out in the end. Everybody is awkward initially. And so, especially in a day of no etiquette--the etiquette used to be there to do that. We don't have that anymore. Someone asked me if I bow in Japan. I said, 'No, because they have a stereotype of the dumb, kind of aggressive American. I'm going to play that role. It's there for free to play. They'll allow me to do it.' So, I kind of wave really clumsily to people, give them a big thumbs up. If you're going to allow me to get by being kind of the ignorant American, then I'll be the puppy dog. But, in general, I think it's just like--if you're both kind of understanding, if you're both friendly but also respectful, you kind of look around you and see what rules--what people are doing, what they're not doing. And, if they're not doing it, don't do it. Don't cross the road. 'When in Rome, do as the Romans' is a really fine rule to a point. Don't go into a place in culture, or you'll pollute it. |
| 41:49 | Russ Roberts: There's a stereotype you mention in one of your essays of the Ugly American or the--you just used, whatever phrase you used, loud and aggressive, or whatever it was. And, you write in an essay--I want to turn now to sort of cultural differences between America and Europe--but, you talk about, in one of your essays, that a lot of people claim that Americans are despised around the world, but that is not your experience. As I think listeners have already caught on. So, talk about why you think that is, and what's your experience of American culture outside of America? Chris Arnade: Yeah, one of my pet projects these days is to change the idea that America is loathed around the world. I mean, I think a lot of people in the world--first of all, most people in the world are not politically engaged, okay? The quip I always say is: The only people who hate Americans are American sociology professors. And then, the sociology departments in other countries--which is where people tend to go when they get this idea that America is hated. They go to academic campuses around the world. Sure, there's some of that there. But, if you go to neighborhoods just outside of the universities--just normal people--America is loved. American foreign policy might not be appreciated, but that's very different from Americans. And, foreigners have a great ability to separate the two. I think nobody understands better that the population is not responsible for the politicians' policy than people who grew up in the Third World. They themselves are examples of that, where they understand that they may have a very big difference from the politicians. But, I think the strongest influence across the world from the United States is our culture. It's Hollywood. It's our TVs. Talking about speaking English--everybody speaks English now. I remember I was on a bus in Sofia. I was the only member--I was the only guy on the bus. It was the early bus to the airport. I was all by myself. And, the bus driver spoke perfect English. And I said, 'Where'd you learn it?' He goes, 'Cartoon Network.' And, I remember when I was in Mongolia, there was this young woman, 20-year-old woman, who grew up in the slums in the Gare district in a yurt, who spoke perfect English. I asked her where she learned it, and she said, 'From Friends.' I said, 'Well, English friends or American friends?' She said, 'No, the TV show Friends.' She had watched the TV show Friends, the entire series. I guess there's eight seasons. She's watched the eight seasons, every episode, six times. And, I found that across the globe. There are people who learn English from Friends. I, often as an American, am the person who knows least about American culture. The piece I wrote about America that no American hates starts with a story of when I was in Uganda, in Kampala. I was in a poor fishing village outside of Kampala. And there was a wood shack--literally a wood shack--where the guy was selling you--he would sell you whatever DVD [digital video disc] you wanted. He could just download it and pirate whatever you wanted within a minute. Like, whatever movie I wanted from all over the world. But, he was sitting in a shack blasting Alan Jackson, which is American country music. Okay, I know from my past, and I believe the song he was blasting was 'Gone Country--[sings] I've gone country.' And here I am in a fishing village listening to Alan Jackson, blasted from a shack. And, on his dashboard, he had four American flags. That story is quintessential. I've seen that across the world. In Jordan--a place that famously should hate America, or people think hates America--I was welcomed. 'Oh, America. Yay, America.' And so--one of the more shocking ones was--I remember it was early on in my trip. I was in Vietnam. I was in Hanoi, and I was doing a long walk. And I actually--I read the comments on my substack, and someone said, 'Why haven't you written about the Vietnam War?' And this was--I had been there for a month--and I said, 'Well, because I don't bring stuff up that others don't bring up.' And, nobody had brought up the Vietnam War, so I hadn't heard it. So, I'm like, 'Okay, maybe I should ask the question.' So, I was in a village, in a neighborhood where there was a monument to a December 24th--I think it was December 24th--bombing we had done of Hanoi, where we killed, I think 120, civilians. And a monument was constructed of part of a downed U.S. jet/bomber. And so, here I was, in a neighborhood with a downed U.S. bomber, standing, taking pictures of this memorial to Vietnamese we had killed on the December 24th bombing. And I'm thinking--and also, some guys come up to me and ask me if I want to go have a meal. They want to take me out for dinner, lunch. I asked them about the statue, and they're like, 'I don't know, it's been there for a while. I don't know.' They couldn't tell me anything about the statue or the memorial. Russ Roberts: Well, you said you're 6'2", 200. I'm starting to think maybe you're 6'2", 140, because you get invited out to a lot of meals, Chris. You must look hungry. Chris Arnade: I mean, you know, it's actually one of the things that I find very, very moving, but also very frustrating at times, is the amount of times people will buy you a meal. And, you know, this happens in places where--in Hanoi, I got into--it was early on in my process--I got into a gift-giving war, where this family invited me to dinner, and I sat there eating with them. And, the guy ran a business out of his house. He wasn't poor, but he wasn't well-to-do. But, he's feeding me. So, the next night, I came back with--I went to the American grocery store, bought some American gifts. They really like sweets, and they're expensive there--the sweets--so, like, Oreo cookies and things like that. And I brought them back. And that was a big mistake. That was a big mistake. Because then the obligation became them to give me more and more stuff. So, then they had to come out and start--I try not to drink much, but then they insisted I sit there, stay there. He brought out some additional bottles and made me sit there; and he had to outdo me. Russ Roberts: Kind of beautiful. Chris Arnade: Yeah. And so, there's a sense of--I think in a lot of the world, that's how you make friends. You give gifts. And these are people who don't have a lot; and they're giving me gifts. I find it to be very humbling; but at the same time, in some ways, very frustrating, because you can't--you just have to accept it. Russ Roberts: You're a traveler. You're a vulnerable person. By definition, you don't have your stuff with you. And, feeding people is the way that you honor that person's need. And food, by the way, obviously is an important part of all kinds of things. It's interesting. We've mentioned a lot of meals here. |
| 50:17 | Russ Roberts: You write that Europe and America have two different minds, and two different understandings of what it means to be a human. What do you mean by that? Chris Arnade: I think the United States, to a fault, has overemphasized a need to be, individuality--to be your own person. To an extent where, almost a libertarian idea both of what it means to succeed--to the point where I think we've forgotten that there are non-measurable quantities of fulfillment that are not economic. And, I think Europe, to a certain degree, while relative to the rest of the world is along that pathway, it's less along that pathway. You know, I both love and hate--I'm an American. One of the things I keep trying to write about is: You are your culture. And, you can no more divorce that--you just can't. You can't shed your skin. You can't shed your culture. And, no matter how open-minded you are, you're a product of where you were born, because it installs certain kinds of ways of thinking and certain kind of--how you see the world. So, I am a product of America. I really appreciate America's individuality. I could not do what I do without having been in America. Because, I've remade myself three times, three different careers. That doesn't exist in the communalism--it exists less in the communalism of Europe. So, I understand the advantages of America. But, there's a real sense when you're in Europe that people are just happier and more fulfilling, and they understand that there's more to life than accumulating goods and emancipating yourself from all obligations. There's a sense of a public good, a sense of--it's the idea that some things don't make sense economically, but they're still okay because they're better in the long run. There's a more we're-in-this-together attitude. And that means--I think, a lot of U.S. people, a lot of U.S. companies, look at Europe and are frustrated by the labor laws. You know, like, 'What? You're not going to come in on the weekend? Are you crazy?' But, there are certain things that, I think, you know, not feeling an obligation to come in on the weekend is healthier for a culture. Especially now, given how both of us are advanced economically. Maybe the kind of U.S. work ethic mattered 200, 150 years ago when we were trying to get through the Industrial Revolution. But we've gotten through it. Now we're in a different stage. And I think emphasizing community, emphasizing these sort of things that matter more--it's not just Europe. You remember--I'm going to Brazil, soon. I haven't been to Brazil in 25 years. When I was a banker, I used to go to Brazil a lot. And, I was thinking about this the other day, was: I ran a group of kids--kids--22-year-olds, 23-year-olds--who worked at a bank. My firm bought a bank in Brazil. And, we were running this competition, unbeknownst to them, of which one we'd invite to join our firm--move to New York, join the big U.S. bank. When eventually I told the kid who won, 'Hey, by the way, we're promoting you to New York,' you know, he turned it down. Russ Roberts: To your surprise, because you thought this was the greatest reward and plum you could possibly provide. Chris Arnade: Yeah. And so--and then I ended up spending a few weekends with him and his family in Sao Paulo, and I got it. Like, you know, he had a community there. His girlfriend, who he eventually married, his wife, who had been--all their families were interconnected. They had other things. Just building a resume was one thing he was going to do. And he's had a successful banking career in Brazil. But, we were looking, like, 'Hey man, you just turned down $x-million over the course of your career to stay in Brazil.' I think he made the right decision, because he valued other things. He valued his family, he valued his community, his obligations, his culture more. And I think the American mentality, in many ways, can't understand that, and sees that as backwards, as something that needs to be moved beyond. I actually think that's healthier. I think the United States, we're on the wrong side of the equation here. We're trying to wring out every bit of efficiency, every bit of, kind of--whereas some inefficiency is okay. Sometimes inefficiency is okay. Russ Roberts: For that kid, that young man, you were thinking, 'You could be a master of the universe.' But, as a friend of mine says, that job's already taken, actually. So it's kind of an illusion, and you're not going to be happy. You're going to be away from your family. |
| 56:25 | Russ Roberts: So, the values are different. Now, for sure. You feel it very much here: I feel it very much here in Israel. One of the great things about being an immigrant--and immigrants like being, taking a very, very, very long walk, in my case for four years--and you're constantly noticing how, even when you're with people who might even have American roots but have been here for 30 and 40 years, they're not the same. The culture is different. And, especially for Jews who come from America, who visited here, and they think, 'Oh, I know Israel.' No, you don't. You're living here. You live in the Middle East. And, that has many challenging and wonderful things that America doesn't have. Chris Arnade: You moved from, where? was it Pittsburgh? Where were you from? Russ Roberts: No, we were living in Potomac, Maryland. Chris Arnade: Okay. And, you've been in Israel how long now? Russ Roberts: Four years. Chris Arnade: And, do you feel like--I mean, there's a lot of logistical issues--the war, obviously, and things such as that--but independent of that, do you feel like there's a healthier sense of the public good, a healthier sense of communal life in Israel? Russ Roberts: Oh, for sure. For sure. One of the things I've written about, which we'll link to it--and you'll like this, I think--is eating out in a restaurant here is very different than eating out in America. At first, you think, 'Oh, the service here is terrible. They give you your food, and then they never come back.' But, for Israelis, that's the way they like it. They don't want anybody to come back. They want to sit there and enjoy an evening with their friends, uninterrupted by someone saying, 'Can I get you anything else? Hope everything's okay? Can I fill your water?' In Israel, they put a water pitcher down on your table after they serve the food, where they come take your order. And they will refill it if you can get their attention. But, it's a very, very different culture of how you behave at dinner. And, it's exactly the efficiency you're talking about, where, I was in a restaurant once: a friend of mine had lost one of his parents. And, it's a very nice restaurant in New York. After about 45 minutes, or maybe it was an hour, we'd pretty much finished eating. The waitress--both because her boss preferred it this way, and she preferred it this way--wanted us to leave so the table could turn over another time before the evening ended. Understandably. So, there was a lot of bringing the check: 'Can I help you? Can I get you anything else?' And at one point, I took her aside. I said, 'My friend just lost his mom, and we're going to be here for a long time, and I'm going to give you a really, really good tip, and it would be great if you could just let us sit here and not be interrupted.' And, she did, and it was great. And I gave her a really good tip. My friend, who is a very perceptive person, never noticed that we were there for, I think, three hours--two and a half or three hours. But that's what he needed. In Israel, two and a half hours at a restaurant is kind of like normal. There are some restaurants here that will, if you've made a reservation, say, 'You have till whatever time it is, and then we're going to have to move you along.' But, it's very rare. Every place here is like Barnes & Noble. You sit down for a cup of coffee, you're in. Chris Arnade: That's true of the rest of the world relative to the United States. And, as a single traveler, that can be awkward, because I don't like to feel like I'm taking up a table. Russ Roberts: Correct. Chris Arnade: When you're telling that story--I was in Tel Aviv. I was only there for a week or less; but I wrote a piece about it. I didn't particularly like Tel Aviv. I'm sorry to your listeners; I just felt it was kind of, like, a very bougie city. Although I was in the Muslim neighborhood, which breaks a lot of myths about Israel. But, I found a bar called, literally, The Bar. It was on Google Maps, listed as The Bar. It's run by an old Argentinian, absolutely wonderful place--one of my favorite bars in the world. And, there was that brusque service. I would have to go up--I've been around the world enough to know what was going on. I didn't feel offended. But, I was doing a walk in Tel Aviv, and I realized I didn't particularly enjoy this walk. So, I went back to the bar. I got there at noon on a Friday. I stayed there until six at night. And, I had one of the most amazing times in my life. All the people around there brought food, even though the bar itself had its own food, and they all started feeding me--again, people feeding me. One of the things I always remember is, around sunset--I don't know, it was [?]--[?] just coming around to get people to pray. Russ Roberts: Could be. Chris Arnade: But, that was happening. And, this table, who had these older men who had brought their own food and helped feed me and were very drunk--I just remember them, as the sun was setting and things were closing up, two guys jumped on a motorcycle, and the other one jumped into the sidecar. He said, 'We're going to the third place. Do you want to come? The third place.' And, I turned down the option to go to the third place, which I don't regret. Russ Roberts: What's the third place? What did they mean? Chris Arnade: This was their second place. They had started drinking in the morning. Russ Roberts: Oh, I got it. Chris Arnade: So, they had started drinking in the morning. They had come from outside Tel Aviv. They went every Friday to this bar. They started drinking in the morning--they were all retirees--in their neighborhood, then drove their motorcycles in to this bar. And they were there from basically one until six. From six, they all jumped in and said, 'Off to the third place.' Russ Roberts: That's pretty rare in Tel Aviv, I've got a feeling. I'm sorry you didn't have a great experience there. We do like to visit. It's very different from Jerusalem. So, when you come back, I hope you'll come to Jerusalem. Chris Arnade: Tel Aviv was fine. It felt very much--it was too nice for me. I hate to say that, like. Russ Roberts: I understand. Chris Arnade: It's a very nice city. |
| 1:03:26 | Russ Roberts: When you asked about cultural differences here, one of the--Israel is famously extremely family-oriented. Largest birth rate in the OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] by far--3.1 per whatever person. I don't know whether that's per person or per woman, but I think number two is like 2.2 or 2.4. There are only three countries in the OECD in the data I just saw recently that are over two, which is kind of shocking. So, it's very family-oriented. There are a lot of children around. And that feels good. There's a certain warmth about the place because of that. I've talked on here before about the woman who gets on the bus and hands you a baby, goes and pays a stranger, then comes back and gets the kid back. That's very common here. The other thing that's kind of striking--just a cultural adjustment for me--is the army. So, everybody here goes to the army, and it's a very important part of a young person's opening to their adulthood. They often want to be in a more elite unit or a particular kind of unit. They want to be a paratrooper. They want to be a pilot, which is incredibly hard to do, unbelievably demanding. And, when I first got here, I thought, 'Well, I was raised as an economist on the virtues of the volunteer army. Maybe we should have one here.' And, after a very short period of time, I realized, 'Boy, that is really a bad idea here.' The army, and its socializing of different people from all different parts of the country and different levels of religiousness and lack of religiousness--ideally, with the war, a lot of--some, not a lot, but some--ultra-Orthodox are joining the army. But: A lot of people have talked about how, in a tank, you'll often have a religious person--not ultra-Orthodox, but what's called a modern Orthodox person--with a secular person. And, they may have had limited interaction before. They tend to generally maybe have spent more time with people like themselves. And, here they are in a life-and-death situation with somebody who is different. That's really an important thing for making this country work. So, I don't have any romance about the volunteer army here, and I think it's a powerful, powerful, unfortunately-needed thing here. So, there are 10 things like that. And, by the way, last thing--last thing--I've got to tell you this: I can't tell you how many Americans will tell me something they've observed that they don't like about Israel. This will be, to someone like me, an Anglo immigrant. And they'll say, 'I really don't like that Israelis don't do this,' or, 'I really like that Israelis do this, and I don't like that they do this.' So, they tell me, 'I'm going to change that.' 'Oh really?' I say. 'Yeah, yeah. I'm going to just start doing whatever the opposite thing is.' I'm thinking, 'Oh, my friend, talk about a quixotic effort.' Maybe you should just try to see what the good side of what's--' When I first got here and had that thing about the check and the service, I thought, 'This is really frustrating.' And then I realized it's actually beautiful, and I've come to love it. And when I go to America, it's jarring. Israelis, by the way--the other thing they find very difficult in America is the politeness. People think Israelis are rude. They're not rude; they're just not good at the niceties. They're not rude at all, but they don't like it when someone says, 'How are you?' 'Fine, and you?' And they find that offensive, because it's not authentic and sincere. So, I've gotten kind of used to that, too. It's just the way it is. Chris Arnade: Speaking about the army, one of my images[?]--I took the bus from Amman to Tel Aviv. So, I went through the West Bank. I changed buses at the border. One of the images I'll never forget, of all my travels, is, somewhere coming from the West Bank into Jerusalem, some young soldiers got on the bus to check documents, etc. And there were two women soldiers who were no older than my daughters at the time--looked like kids--kids with automatic weapons. What I'll never forget is the one that had a Hello Kitty tag dangling from her automatic weapon. That, to me, is the image of, kind of, Israel. I actually have, actually, I mean, one of the things I write about a lot is you need shared cultural experiences for a nation to work. And Israel has those. |
| 1:08:20 | Russ Roberts: Let's close with talking about religion. A lot of your essays--and I think if you did a search, you could probably do this now with AI fairly effectively--I find myself increasingly interested in the concept of belonging. I was very affected by my conversation with Sebastian Junger about his book, Tribe. Tribalism is considered a bad thing, but we're tribal creatures, as you point out in a number of places in your essays. We have a need to belong. We're social creatures. Of course, there are exceptions. I understand that not every single person enjoys socializing, would not be comfortable in any of the bars or restaurants or situations you've been talking about. But, many, many human beings--that's a desperately needed thing. And, I think in America, religion is--it ebbs and flows. Over the long historical trend, it's on the decline. It may bounce back. We'll see. But, you've become more interested in religion as you've gotten older, which is probably, I think in our previous conversation, may be a surprise to you--or maybe not. But, talk about that, and tie it into the sense of national belonging. We've been talking about community. But, of course, there's a community at a higher level called a nation, which is part of what you just alluded to. And religion plays a different kind of role in that sense of belonging. So, let's close and talk about that a little, if you can. Chris Arnade: Yeah. I mean, I think probably the biggest change of my life over the last 10 years is not only a respect for religion at an intellectual level, but also becoming religious. I don't know how much of that is age. And as you get older, you just realize the idea of living a meaningless life is just so depressing that--I don't know if it's kind of a disenchantment with kind of the scientific life I've lived, which can answer a lot of questions without answering the big questions. Russ Roberts: You were trained in physics, if I remember? Chris Arnade: Correct. Physics, yeah. But, to me, as an observer, I don't want to give an entirely utilitarian answer, because religion is more than that. There's a lot more to it than--but I'll start with a utilitarian answer, which is: you know, just from simply observing people, you can see how universal the desire for religion is--both historically, and then also just currently--how universal there is a desire for it: People to have a meaning that transcends the here and now. It's almost like everybody has a--if I was a sociobiologist, I would say it's almost like everybody has a little magnet in them that's pulling them to the transcendent. And no matter how thick you make the walls, that magnet is still there. And so, you can try to pretend like we're just rational beings--hyper-rational beings--who don't need this, this what seems to be irrational side. Whereas I see it as--I think everybody has that there--to the degree that you can deny that, I think that's detrimental to living a fulfilling life. You talk about--going back to the earlier part--going to these monuments and seeing transcendence. That human urge to make the transcendent is universal. That speaks to something: people are not just happy with the material. They need something beyond the material to uplift life, to remove it from the banal. So, I think there's very much a kind of, almost a scientific--as a scientist, I almost see the evidence that religion is, quote, "right," that there's more to us. But, I think, ultimately, to me, it's been about accepting humility of understanding that we don't have the answers. And that, if I throw up my hands and say, 'We don't have the answers, why would I choose Catholicism? Why would I choose--?' And I say: because it works. It's out there. It works for me. It's where I feel comfortable. Maybe that's from my background, I don't know. But, it's something that, to me, feels right. That's as good an answer as--I'm not going to find a better one. And I've tried. So, I'm very comfortable. As a scientist, a trained scientist, as a, kind of, quote, "intellectual," and as someone who is intellectually curious, I will never be a hundred percent comfortable. I will always have doubts. And I probably shouldn't admit that. But, to the degree--but as I get older and older, I find that those doubts feel sillier and less important. Russ Roberts: My guest today has been Chris Arnade. Chris, thanks for being part of EconTalk. Chris Arnade: Thank you for having me. |
Skip the Mona Lisa when you visit Paris. Don't tour the Coliseum in Rome. Walk, don’t hurry. Chris Arnade speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about a different way to travel. Listen as Arnade shares what he learned from Istanbul's small community mosques and how Avignon's Congolese-neighborhood cathedrals provided moving moments of spirituality. He also explains why Japan and Vietnam's emphasis on community lends itself to more happiness than America's "me-focused" approach, and what gear he carries--and leaves behind--for his extremely long walks through the world. Finally, he offers suggestions for choosing places to eat on the road that can elevate meals into meaningful experiences. This is a thoughtful conversational journey about veering off the beaten path to find home in surprising places.
READER COMMENTS
Lacey
Jul 14 2025 at 9:50am
I love it when Chris is on! Great episode!
Chris is 100% right about Istanbul. (I haven’t seen Jerusalem yet… I’ll reevaluate after my trip in October.) It is *the coolest* city and Turks are great! I lived there for a while and quickly learned to avoid the tourist area. If you are a tourist, zoom through Topkapi Palace (unless you are a history buff, you won’t know what you are looking at anyway) and then take a boat trip (out of Uskudar) up the Bosphorus and then explore Beyoglu street in Taksim. That’s where Turks go to have fun. Eat there, not in the Eminonu or Sultan Ahmet (Fatih) areas.
I did not feel as welcome in mosques as Chris did. As a young, blonde, American woman (modestly dressed!), I was treated with suspicion, even just sitting in the garden. So if you aren’t a dark haired dude with a beard 🙂 be sure to ask for permission before entering a mosque complex not designed for tourists.
Lacey
Jul 14 2025 at 10:59am
Chris, my very first day after moving to Istanbul was Kurban Bayram (the sacrifice holiday), and I had no clue. I was wandering around and found myself in a poorer neighborhood and noticed blood flowing down the gutter and random hoofs/horns laying around… and then saw an elderly man binding an animal!! He adamantly said dur! dur! to me, which was the only Turkish I knew because “dur” is on the stop signs. I didn’t know if he meant stop walking or stop staring – I kept walking. I decided to abandoned vegetarianism when I moved to Istanbul, but no way was I going to watch an animal slaughtered. That was a big “oh no! what have a done!” moment.
Ajit Kirpekar
Jul 14 2025 at 9:02pm
Ive enjoyed all three of Chris’s appearances on econ talk, But he frustratingly makes the same argument and it’s a mistake in the same way every single time.
The last time I wasn’t sure if he thought this way but his comment about how we are no longer pre industrial revolution just confirms to me that he thinks economic growth and innovation is largely just more physical stuff. More gadgets and more cars.
And it’s here I have to just keep explaining over and over that innovation means much more than that. It also means cleaner air, cleaner health, More sustainable use of energy and the world’s natural resources. That stuff by the way doesn’t just go to Americans but proliferates to other countries. If it had not been for Norman Borlaug’s enormous contributions which happened way past the industrial revolution, untold numbers of poor people may not be alive today or since.
This whole growth is superfluous argument is hard for me to stomach. When you think about the myriad of people suffering from a deadly disease or a chronic illness that we don’t have a cure for, I wonder what their mindset would be with respect to working nights and weekends to find that breakthrough.
Joel
Jul 15 2025 at 9:40am
Fantastic episode, my early front runner for episode of the year. I’m sure many of his anecdotes could be questioned – do his traveling acquaintances really love America or are they just trying to curry his favor? – but seems he travels without any preconceived agenda, which allows him to learn rather than reinforcing his own priors.
Pedro Girardi
Jul 16 2025 at 6:16am
I couldn’t help but smirk here:
It’s a bit like my father saying that he never listened to indie rock and does not like it.
The host seems like a very interesting person that is trying a bit too hard to avoid some of the most beautiful places on earth.